Thoroughbred - 1964 Plymouth Belvedere

“I can’t say that I know of another street car out there that has raced at Daytona.” That’s what we were told by Ray Evernham—the famed NASCAR crew chief—as we sat in his office at the NASCAR business park in Mooresville, North Carolina. Outside was his freshly built ’64 Plymouth Belvedere with the body atop a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Car of Tomorrow chassis that raced under the Dodge Valvoline car at the ’07 and ’08 Daytona 500. Its Dodge R5-P7 engine was used in superspeedway cars driven by Kasey Kahne and Bill Elliot.

In the first race for the then-new 426 Hemi, Richard Petty, Jimmy Pardue, and Paul Goldsmith finished 1-2-3 at the ’64 Daytona 500, all in ’64 Plymouths, so Ray thought the body style would be a perfect candidate for a modern superspeedway chassis. “I love old vintage,” Ray says, “but I also really love new technology. I just wanted to take a vision of two things that were just such polar opposites and make them work together. So I thought, what was the coolest stock car body from the ’60s? That’s a ’64 Plymouth. When we slammed that thing down with the fat tires and new suspension, it was just perfect.” NASCAR fabricators Ray and Dan Baker had also considered doing a street car. “Finally, when I started working [for Evernham], everything came together,” says Dan, who was build leader after he purchased the Plymouth on eBay. This was the team’s first street-car buildup, and Dan stresses that, “The detail has to be a little better than on the race cars.”

The chassis is straight NASCAR, as nothing on it was replaced with street parts, though Dan says, “The car is built for more of a circle track setup. We had to make it turn left and right.” The team had to purchase upper control arms that were the same length on both sides of the car, though the bottoms are already equal lengths on the Cup cars. According to Dan, “Camber and caster needed to be the same on both sides, but fortunately there’s a lot of adjustability, about 3 inches worth. You can change the window on the upper A-arm slugs. The car had enough adjustment that we could get it without having to cut anything off. Other than that we didn’t take much out of it. It’s still a race car.”

6/17Another donor from the Daytona 500 race car was the 18-gallon fuel cell, reworked to easily accept a fuel filler from a standard gas-station pump.

The engine was detuned with a custom Comp camshaft and reduced compression to be more streetable, making “only” 750 hp on North Carolina’s 93-octane pump gas. Fuel injection for NASCAR Sprint Cup is new for the ’13 season, but this older engine originally ran a carburetor, so it was converted to EFI using a FAST system that controls injection and timing. It does not have coil packs like the new Cup Cars, but rather a traditional distributor. It still features an MSD ignition box, but only one instead of the twins found on race cars, though it has two batteries for turning over the high-torque starter.

There are a couple aero upgrades, like a small front air splitter and rear spoiler, but very little of the original body was changed. The front track width didn’t perfectly mate with the body, so the wheel openings were modified to clear the tires under full lock. The most difficult part of the build was slicing apart the car to fit the new frame, as it’s a unibody (no separate frame) in stock configuration. The body was mostly complete when they bought it, and the team was able to reuse all of the trim. “It was a rolling shell of a six-cylinder car; all the Mopar guys will be happy we didn’t cut up a pristine car,” Dan says.

10/17This is a retired Car of Tomorrow chassis that raced at Daytona twice. Little has changed. It’s fully adjustable and we would love to see this thing kill a racetrack. Hot Rod

Dan also laid the Radiant Red and Graphite Gray graphics, both from Sherwin-Williams. He added two coats of gloss clearcoat to smooth the edges of the graphics, wet-sanded that, then added two coats of satin. The gloss under satin also adds to the unique finish.

I hope whoever buys it, drives it. It’s not just a show car. — Ray Evernham

By the time you read this, the car will have been auctioned at Barrett-Jackson, with the proceeds donated to Ignite, a part of the Autism Society of North Carolina that is opening a new facility in Davidson, North Carolina. Ignite works with high-functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome to help them have a quality life. “I hope whoever buys it drives it. Its not just a show car,” Ray says. Dan added, “If I owned it, I’d be driving it every day. Hopefully, whoever gets it will. If I have something like that, I’m going to drive it. I don’t care what happens to it when I’m driving it.”

14/17

“This car is capable of 200 mph,” Ray told us with a smirk.

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